Over at the Ringer, our pal Rob Harvilla has a good, funny, thorough review of the new Metallica record, Hardwired... to Self-Destruct. If you want the record placed thoughtfully in the broader context of Metallica’s career, and the 20-or-so years it has spent sorta flailing around and tripping over its own dick, I heartily recommend Harvilla’s excellent blog. I am just here to tell you that I am like 80 percent of the way through Hardwired... to Self-Destruct and, unless the last couple of songs turn out to be about how actually Metallica thinks Mike Pence is very sexy, it is good as hell.

The 50-something metal legends have a new album, and it’s a return to gut-punching formRead more Read more

Advertisement

Here is one of the songs from the record, titled “Spit Out the Bone.” It features some of the most gloriously cheeseball lyrics I think I have ever heard—

Accelerate, utopian solutionFinally cure the Earth of manExterminate, speeding up the evolutionSet on course a master planReinvent the earth inhabitant

—and it fucking owns.

Here is another song from Hardwired... to Self Destruct. It is titled “Now That We’re Dead.” As best I can tell, it is about how being dead is cool and good. It owns.

Basically all the songs are like this: six or seven minutes long, super duper corny, and good as hell. The major exception is the title track, “Hardwired,” which is good as hell, super duper corny, and only about three minutes long.

Except for James Hetfield’s voice sounding a lot thinner and more, uh, effort-y in his old age, they’re all pretty much perfectly backward-compatible with ...And Justice for All or Master of Puppets, the two old Metallica records that own the hardest. [Ed. note: Fuck you, Ride the Lightning owns all.] (“Here Comes Revenge” has a little bit more of a Black Albumvibe, but it still wrecks shit.)